The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-10-16

pers used at Harvard, brought him list of
account of methods used Conforming his
own examination as closely as possible to
the queries propounded with explanation of
system of marks employed and detai lied
the Harvard conditions and using the same
set of questions, he sent second time for
the results of the mems struggles with
major premise and minor and put the fig
ureS side by side with those which the Vas
sar girls had obtained There was little
difference in the highest percentages of the
crack loglclans of the two sexes, but the
best mark, well up to the top Of the nine
Ties, was obtained by woman and not by
man The classes were approximately
equal in numbers, twenty-five and twenty
seven, but the study ranked as an elective
III both colleges and there were only thirty
odd girls to elect where the Harvard class
reached many times that number If the
difference at the top of the scale
was not a marked one, that at the bottom
was. The Nassar girls average was in the
eighties and no percentage was less than
seventy, where the Harvard figures ran
down into the tifties, several men failing to
pass at all.
No figures of this sort are good for much,
but there may be some significance in the
averages. DR. Truman Backus, who occu-
pied the chair of English literature for
some years at Nassar, tells me that visiting
professors from mems colleges always ex-
pressed to him surprise at the high average
scholarship of his classes Their honor men
might be superior to the leading student
among the girls, but without exception they
acknowledged to him that they had no classes
from the teachers point of view so pleas
ant to teach because the rank list dropped
off SO rapidly; they had seldom anything
like the average ability of the Vassar girls
in the class rooms. Heredity might produce
and theoretically ought to produce from
generations of educated men an exception
ally fine mind in the brilliant male students
which woman without that background
could not equal, but the generality of girl
students would do better than the rank and
file of men.
The coeducational schools offer the best
chance for collection of facts as to the rel
alive scholarship of boys and girls or young
men and women under the same conditions
and candor compels the admission that the
facts are sometimes contradictory. The
principal of a widely known preparatory
school, the Adelphi Academy, of Brooklyn,
tells me that the only fault he has to find
with co-education is that it discourages
boys, girls excel them SO decidedly. His
best students year after year, until the sue
cession of valedictorians becomes monoton-
Gus, are girls. This is city school, In the
country district, at least in the East, a con-
trary tale is often told st. Lawrence Uni
versity in northern New York is one of
our smaller colleges supported largely by
farming population. 1t enjoys the distinc-
ton Of being almost the cheapest school in
the East in which an education may be had
and has graduated some of the sturdiest
men in the State. 1t has never made any
distinction against women students, but
their general scholarship has been consider
ably below the level of the men. 1t has
had bright girls within its walls, but half
dozen years ago when | had personal knowl-
edge of it, it was the rarest of novelties
that the brightest student in any class should
be a girl.
In the district schools and village acade-
mics in the rural districts of the Middle
and Western States the best students are
apt to be of the supposed sterner sex. The
further ones Investigations are carried into
the backwoods the more marked does this
disparity become. On the other hand, in
the cities and suburban villages where bet
ter educational advantages are supposed to
be offered, the rule is as [ have stated it
above the girls are ahead. This may be,
because the girls in the country districts
nave more engrossing domestic cares to tire
their minds and bodies, it may be because
the boys Of the school, and the young men
of the academy apply themselves with
greater zeal to their tasks than the city boys
whose minds are bent on play, and it may
be, and probably is, due to these and a va
riety of other causes, which it might inter
est the curious to investigate.
l have known young man of p, en-
ployed by farmer to ''do chores" who
went to school and stood up with the 3 year
ODDS in the A B G class His generous en-
ployer put stop to his schooling after a
few weeks, during which he made famous
progress. The man was in the habit of get
ting up of unheard of hours in the morning
to do his work, so that he could go to school,
and it wasted oil for the lantern, the farmer
said | have never heard of the student
since, but have happy conviction that he
must have succeeded finally in learning to
read. So much resolution could hardly be
baked for a lifetime. It is this spirit that
sometimes makes famous students of rough
country lads; nothing akin to it is found in
the city except at the evening schools, and
not often there. The difficulty about light
before kerosene grew so absurdly cheap was
sometimes surmounted by up country lads
by the use of pitch pine knots. / have
known one boy who was taken out of the
village academy to attend a sugar. bush,n
who more than kept up with his classes by
the light of the fire with V .ich he boiled
his maple syrup. The country girl some
times has this stamina, but oftener not.
But the city girl is healthier than her
brother when she gives herself chance to
be so, and she has better brain. She is
probably less frivolous, if such generaliza-
lions are ever safe, and it is she and not
the cigarette smoking sex who oftener
shows the pine knot spirit of the country
lad.
The larger educational colleges give their
girls students good names Prof. Winchell,
the geologist, of Michigan University, who
was a sturdy friend of co-education before
it had become generally acceptable in that
school, writes that the attachments of women
are generally above those Of men, Though
many men equal them" President Warren,
of Boston University, where no more distinc-
ton is made between the sexes than between
residents of the East and West, tells me
that the records of the best students among
the men and women are about the same,
but that the women usually average better.
Columbia College had occasion, year or
two ago, to Introduce a more difficult
textbook in astronomy than the one which
special student, who had been allowed to
pursue that study, used the harder book.
At Syracuse and Cornell the women ask no
fayors. In the South they are reported to
be outstripping the men in general educa-
ton. Take it all in all the balance of fact
and opinion inclines to the side that, as GER
tainly as education is going on, as the girls
colleges are growing, and more of the mems
colleges are opening their doors, so certainly
the girls are making and are going to make
good use of their chances.
ELIZA PUTNAM HEATON